hunternet93 – spot on. I was kicking around what to use for a motor, stepper, brushed, etc., and thought, “what if I can find a cheap cordless drill at Goodwill?”. Ask and ye shall receive. I found one for $5 shortly thereafter.

Ya, sorry I didn’t show the outside. I still have to paint everything to get it somewhat damp-proof.

@spyder_21: If they don’t make it, they’re COOKED! Bwahahahaha! Seriously though, I’m looking at PWM’ming the motor a bit before closing to make the motor “sing” – in hopes of giving them a warning.

I have also considered an optical chicken detector that would disallow door operation if a bird is in the beam.

Fortunately for them, closing time is mostly a manual operation at this point, since we have to herd the birds. Opening the door at the crack of dawn (when I’m fast-asleep) was the real driving reason for this project.

It’s got an internal H-Bridge with feedback and fault-sensing. I’m working on using the feedback for something useful – possibly a stuck chicken-sensor? What’s interesting is that I can see the PWM affect the feedback values.

I was going to roll my own H-bridge, but realized that error conditions could cause blue smoke without smarts.

Ultimately, I want to get some cheap H-Bridge controllers and then use mosfets scrapped from mainboards for the high-power section.

At top load, the motor draws just under 5A (6v), which this controller can handle for up to 30 seconds. The door operation is much more brief than that.

Is there a moat? I think there should be a moat. Any time there is a door like that, you definitely need to have a moat. And a drawbridge. A drawbridge, and a moat? Is that also part of your future plans?

Mind you, it is strictly for sale and has no schematics posted. I’ve seen that particular one in person, so I’m aware of the components that go into making them. Good for farmers who really don’t care about microcontrollers and expandibility , probably not enough to tinker with for anyone into hobby electronics.

How do the chickens react to the sound of the drill operating? We have several hens that don’t like noise at all near the coop and were wondering how you would sound proof the drill so they wouldn’t mind entering. Just a question.

@Heratiki: We haven’t put it out in the coop just yet, so we don’t know how they’ll react.

However, I don’t think the two hens we have at the moment will have any problem with noise.

They gleefully follow around: lawnmowers, weed-eaters, people with chainsaws, dangerous people with chainsaws, and all the way up to the gigantic track-hoe that was ripping a shipping container to shreds.

Basically, *anything* at any noise level that stirs the dirt up is their bestest friend. The bigger, the better.

(watching them follow, and flee, and follow, and flee the huge track-hoe was pretty comical)

You should re-title this video, “Simple Solutions – Made Complicated.” I was able to apply the same function with a yard-sale salvaged garage door opener. The difference was that everything was self-contained (motor, circuit board which included limit controls and signal receiver.

Hey @PunxyPhil “Good for farmers who really don’t care about microcontrollers and expandibility”
HEH, You should spend some time on a farm, loads of microcontrollers there from the pump on the well that feeds the pivots to the controllers on the tractors. Almost everything on the farm these days is digital and full of microcontrollers, not just hydraulics and sweat like them olden days. Maybe you haxxors have a frontier not yet discovered for yur haxxing. Try farming automation, relieve some tired farmers. Farmers are the original hackers.

@ Craig and all Simple anti-Racoon trap. Anchor a quart size, clear glass bottle (vinegar) outside with a few grapes and pecans in husk in it and sprinkle a few outside. The raccoon will eat a couple and then see the jar with the grapes and stick his paw stuck when he grabs the grape and it is too big to get out. I recommend a bell on it though as he may chew his paw off trying to get away if you don’t wake up early enough. They are clever little hackers though. Another thing that works well is a dog or two. They are almost always on alert, won’t eat your chickens, and will chase a raccoon off real fast lol.

@flapjackboy: I meant physically stack, with only a couple of signal connections between the boards. Originally, I wanted to have the BlackWidow board do both motor control and wi-fi webserving, but realized I’d have to integrate the state-machines for each (maybe someday). Instead, I punted and went with the seeeduino *and* the BlackWidow to keep ’em separate.